A group working on a landslide warning system in Petersburg will install two weather stations on some of the town’s steep hillsides this summer.
Jeff Meucci is with the Petersburg Landslide Warning Committee.
“Everybody who’s been telling us about landslide work and putting together a landslide warning system talks about the need for data,” he said.
The weather stations will gather data about rainfall, wind, and temperature. They were purchased with a grant from the Petersburg Community Foundation.
Meucci said last fall’s fatal landslide in Wrangell motivated people in Petersburg to start a warning system. They’re planning one similar to Sitka’s, which estimates landslide risk based on weather conditions.
Heavy rainfall is one of the main causes of landslides. Usually the ground is good at soaking up all the water, but with heavy rain the earth can become saturated, making it unstable. And that can trigger a debris flow – the most common kind of landslide in Southeast.
While landslides are hard to predict, real time rainfall data can help. But weather can vary enormously within a few miles in Southeast Alaska. Petersburg’s only official weather station is at the airport. And that’s miles away from the area Meucci said is most prone to landslides. He said the committee decided to place the new weather stations along a stretch of highway just south of town where three slides have come down in the last 15 years.
People living along that hillside told him they want more information so they can decide when to stay and when to go during heavy rains.
“People didn’t want to be told when they should evacuate the house,” he said. “They just needed to kind of see what’s going up on the hillside and make some decisions on their own about what they want to do.”
Meucci said he hopes both weather stations will be installed by some time in July.
Data from the gauges will be available in real time on the internet. Anyone interested in learning more can contact Sunny Rice at sunny.rice@alaska.edu.
